Gum disease safely treated during pregnancy

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Gum disease can be safely treated during pregnant, but treatment is not likely to reduce the risk of preterm birth, according to research presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine scientific meeting in San Diego, California.

Gum, or "periodontal," disease is an infection of the tissue supporting the teeth that affects up to 40 percent of adults. Outside of regular brushing and flossing, effective measures to prevent the disease are limited.

"Maternal periodontal disease is associated with increased risks of preterm birth" and other pregnancy complications, Dr. Amy Murtha, a perinatologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, told Reuters Health. "It was good to show that treatment of periodontal disease is safe and does not make outcomes worse, because that's always been an underlying concern."

Still, she added, "We were surprised and disappointed to find that periodontal treatment did not reduce the rates of prematurity."

The Maternal Oral Therapy to Reduce Obstetric Risk (MOTOR) trial included 1,800 pregnant women with periodontal disease randomly assigned to treatment while pregnant or to delayed therapy.

Periodontal treatment did not reduce the rate of preterm deliveries at 32 weeks, 35 weeks, or less than 37 weeks, or affect birth weight or complications in the newborn.

"It's possible that a single treatment may not have been sufficient to treat the disease," as evidenced by similar rates of periodontal disease progression in the two treatment groups, Murtha said. "Perhaps if we had re-evaluated their disease a few weeks after treatment and then retreated if necessary, we would have been able to effect change in outcomes."